Document H: “Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin”
The following passage from a secondary source explain the impact of the invention of the cotton gin.
H1. “Eli Whitney invented the mechanical cotton gin in 1793. Before this invention, removing seeds
from cotton was very time consuming. . . However, like many inventors, Whitney (who died in
1825) could not have foreseen the ways in which his invention would change society for the worse.
The most significant of these was the growth of slavery. While it was true that the cotton gin
reduced the labor of removing seeds, it did not reduce the need for slaves to grow and pick the
cotton. In fact, the opposite occurred. Cotton growing became so profitable for the planters that it
greatly increased their demand for both land and slave labor. In 1790 there were six slave states; in
1860 there were 15. From 1790 until Congress banned the importation of slaves
from Africa in 1808, Southerners imported 80,000 Africans. By 1860 approximately one in three
Southerners was a slave. . . .”
H2 “. . . Because of the cotton gin, slaves now labored on ever-larger plantations where work was
more regimented [organized] and relentless [unending]. As large plantations spread into the
Southwest, the price of slaves and land inhibited [slowed] the growth of cities and industries. In the
1850s seven-eighths of all immigrants settled in the North, where they found 72% of the nation’s
manufacturing capacity. The growth of the “peculiar institution” [slavery] was affecting many
aspects of Southern life.”
Source: The Eli Whitney Museum
Document I: “The Age of Miracles”
This passage is an excerpt from a newspaper article that was printed in the New York Herald in 1848. It discusses the
possibilities of modern inventions, particularly the telegraph.
On the first of January, 1848, of the Christian era, the new age of miracles began—an age that will
be more astonishing and wonderful than all the preceding ages of the world. We have had geological
periods, traditionary eras, historical ages, and now we have just commenced, on the 1st of January,
1848, the electric, or miraculous age, of the history of this world, and the races on it, that will far
outstrip that of Moses and the Prophets. Printing was the first invention, steam was the next
discovery, and the third was that of the electric telegraph. They are now combined in one
movement, and have presented, during the last week, one of the first symptoms of the miraculous
age, in the columns of the New York Herald.…
It is difficult, however, to convey to the public any idea of the wonderful combination by which
these miracles are performed. Steam, electricity and machinery, operated upon by Heaven-born
intellect, produce the whole. The result is, that space and time are annihilated. By this wonderful
process, the city of New York becomes the central point of the nation, and all the cities connected
with it by telegraph, on the Atlantic sea board, become its faubourgs—its wards—communicating
with them as rapidly and readily every hour, as Wall street does with Chambers street, or Astor Place
does with the Park. In fact, time is not only beaten, but it is annihilated. We can send a message
from New York to St. Louis at twelve o'clock at noon, and it will reach its destination on the banks
of the Mississippi at ten minutes before twelve.…